Best practices for wording of accessibility hints
Best practices for wording of accessibility hints
- Subject: Best practices for wording of accessibility hints
- From: Jamal Mazrui <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2017 07:00:02 -0700
The official guidance from Apple on accessibility hints seems to be
contradicted by practices in its builtin apps for iOS. The following
points are recommended (my wording):
Non-obvious. A hint is only supposed to be given if the functionality
is not obvious from other information such as label and role
information. Yet, there are examples of a hint like "Double tap to
open" when that is obvious, e.g., opening an app from the Home screen.
No mention of gesture. The gesture to invoke an action, e.g., "Double
tap," is not supposed to be included in the hint since there may be
multiple ways of invoking an action. Yet, there are numerous examples
of gestures being mentioned.
Third person perspective. The hint is not supposed to be worded in a
second person perspective, telling you what to do to achieve an action.
Instead, it is supposed to describe the result of an action from the
standpoint of the control, e.g., "Opens book" rather than "Open book."
This practice is regularly violated as well.
Has Apple changed its mind about best practices for accessibility hints
or is it just failing in implementing its own guidelines? I am not
attached to particular practices, except for being as succinct in
wording as possible for hearing efficiency. I do want to adopt
consistent, best practices in this area.
Thoughts?
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